Europe moving 60 ms closer to Japan with new undersea cables

Plans are afoot to lay undersea cables between England and Japan via Canada or …

The climate change-induced retreat of Arctic ice has had one positive effect. The Arctic Ocean is now sufficiently navigable that cable-laying ships will be able to plant undersea cables directly linking London with Tokyo.

The first project to take advantage of this will be the Russian Trans-Arctic Cable System (RUTACS). This $1 billion scheme will run cable from the UK to Japan following Russia's northern coast, with connections to Russia and China along the way. 6 pairs of fibers with a 1.6 Tbit/s capacity per pair will be laid, and minimum latency between London and Tokyo will be 76.58 milliseconds. Construction is planned to begin in the second half of this year.

Arctic Fibre's connection will similarly join England with Japan, but this time following the North American coastline, with cable laid through the the Northwest Passage and several connections to Canada along the way. Total bandwidth between the countries will be 6.4 Tbit/s, with latencies between London and Tokyo of 168 ms.

A third cable project, the Arctic Cable Company's Arctic Link, which would have run a similar route to Arctic Fibre's project but with connections to Alaska rather than Canada, appears to have stalled after it failed to receive government loans that it hoped for.

Currently, Europe and Japan are connected via a mix of land and sea routes, with cables passing through a number of highly-trafficked chokepoints in the Middle East and Asia. A ship dragging its anchor in the wrong place could destroy many of the connections linking the globe.

The Arctic routes are both shorter and subject to far less shipping activity, making them faster and less prone to disruption. However, the presence of sea ice has made cable-laying impractical. Even with the retreat of the ice, the routes will still be hazardous. Normal cable ships tend to be built for warmer climates, so these projects will use ice-rated ships converted to lay cables and partnered with ice-breakers.

Hmm...does this mean Russian & Chinese authorities could have authority over the bits that move through the fiber where they pass through their borders? I imagine there needs to be some locations that need active repeaters to run the full distance, so it'll need electricity & other equipment, and probably be on land which would mean a handy location where filtering/recording equipment could sit, right? Or am I totally off base here?

Hmm...does this mean Russian & Chinese authorities could have authority over the bits that move through the fiber where they pass through their borders? I imagine there needs to be some locations that need active repeaters to run the full distance, so it'll need electricity & other equipment, and probably be on land which would mean a handy location where filtering/recording equipment could sit, right? Or am I totally off base here?

It's ok, the funded cables are avoiding the USA so the worst filtering will not be applied.

It really makes me think... 150 years ago numerous expeditions to traverse the Northwest Passage failed with the loss of all on board. Now, it's all open water.

Nope, davecadron has it all covered, it's all good:

davecadron | about 2 hours ago | permalink | replyHooray for normal changes of Earth's surface ice that have been happening consistently over the past eons of Earth's existence without man even existing! Yea!

Your grandchildren will still hate you when the change kills them because too many people were opposed to doing something about the problem.

Or curse you for valiantly charging into the wrong direction because we made false assumptions from the onset. Still not convinced that measures we are taking now is even remotely effective at combatting climate change.

Quote: "The climate change-induced retreat of Arctic ice has had one positive effect."

Two remarks are apt:

1. Is it "climate change" or "global warming"? There seems to be some confusion about this among true believers. The climate is always changing, with temperatures going up and down over decades, so taking about climate change is a bit like discussing the sun's rising. And if you mean warming then say warming, although globally that's not been happening for over a decade.

2. "One positive effect"? There are hundreds of positive effects of a warming climate, if such were even happening. Humanity would benefit far more from global warming that from global cooling, the latter being the "New Ice Age" hysteria of the late 1970s. The last two warming periods, one during the Roman empire and the other during the Middle Ages, were marvelous times for humanity.

When it comes to climate topics, Ars Technica is always good for a laugh.

I wonder what will be done for us to china/hk, or what is the potential minimum, I've played left 4 dead on hk local servers with friends and my ping from the us west coast is 250~ping during those games...it would be nice if it could be less, I wonder what kind of bottlenecks I'm going through to get to hk.

Quote: "The climate change-induced retreat of Arctic ice has had one positive effect."

Two remarks are apt:

1. Is it "climate change" or "global warming"? There seems to be some confusion about this among true believers. The climate is always changing, with temperatures going up and down over decades, so taking about climate change is a bit like discussing the sun's rising. And if you mean warming then say warming, although globally that's not been happening for over a decade.

2. "One positive effect"? There are hundreds of positive effects of a warming climate, if such were even happening. Humanity would benefit far more from global warming that from global cooling, the latter being the "New Ice Age" hysteria of the late 1970s. The last two warming periods, one during the Roman empire and the other during the Middle Ages, were marvelous times for humanity.

When it comes to climate topics, Ars Technica is always good for a laugh.

Thankfully, it's fairly easy to separate the good tech info from the eco-worshipping. Be careful, though - they'll call you a troll if you disagree.

Hmm...does this mean Russian & Chinese authorities could have authority over the bits that move through the fiber where they pass through their borders? I imagine there needs to be some locations that need active repeaters to run the full distance, so it'll need electricity & other equipment, and probably be on land which would mean a handy location where filtering/recording equipment could sit, right? Or am I totally off base here?

It's ok, the funded cables are avoiding the USA so the worst filtering will not be applied.

Ouch, I guess we deserve that */me kicks an obliviousincompetent immoral congress in the butt*

But really, anyone know how that kind of thing works for bits that are just passing through a country with, shall we say, a government interested in filtering and/or reading everyone's everything? I understand how they more or less have the right (not that I approve) to do so for bits coming into people who happen to be in their country, but bits just moving through are like a plane flying overhead without touching down, sorta. Right?

Well back in the good old Cold War days, the US secretly attached surveillance pods ( via submarine, so there goes another patent ) onto USSR owned cables in the Northwestern Pacific. Got well inside their military thinking loops. So that's old news. So maybe the question is : why would you ?

If this is cheap enough it could cut ping times between Australia and Europe by a third. Currently basically all traffic is routed via the US. So it's 300ms+ to the UK. Japan is 120ms. Australia-Japan bandwidth is already readily available (direct or via Guam).

#1 Why Japan and not China?Obviously the Internet population of China is going to increase exponentially, and connectivity would be much needed there.

#2 Why an undersea cable and not satellites?With the cost of those six cables they could have easily put in orbit an array of satellites just for that, unless the 76.58 milliseconds latency is needed is needed for financial transactions.

#1 Why Japan and not China?Obviously the Internet population of China is going to increase exponentially, and connectivity would be much needed there.

#2 Why an undersea cable and not satellites?With the cost of those six cables they could have easily put in orbit an array of satellites just for that, unless the 76.58 milliseconds latency is needed is needed for financial transactions.

You've clearly never tried to play an online game via satellite. The latency is a killer.